The Naked Scientist Chris Smith makes science fun during visit to Applecross Senior High School

CHRIS Smith tried to make science fun for kids during a session at Applecross Senior High School yesterday.

The Cambridge University-based doctor, who is a member of The Naked Scientists group, led a question and answer session thanks to Murdoch University.

“The idea is to try and make science a bit more fun for young people,” he said.

“There’s a syllabus that teachers are obliged to teach but then very often there are other interesting aspects of science that they don’t get the opportunity to talk about in lessons.

“Giving people the opportunity to have any science question answered taps into people’s interests and you can fire up people’s imaginations, that’s what I was trying to do.

“Kids spend their lives being told what to learn and getting told what they have to know but often they have some really good questions and this gives them that opportunity to ask those.”

Dr Smith said the group’s eye-catching name came from wanting to bring some fun to science.

“We wanted to make something that made people laugh and then think, the point was not to take itself too seriously,” he said.

“Science has a bit of an image problem, people think of it as a bit hard, boring and dull but if you have a name like The Naked Scientists then it makes people chuckle a bit and then it’s a bit intriguing.”